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Telegraph Picks: The Best Email Marketing Platforms for Campaigns

Email marketing is a critical component in most digital strategies. Nonprofits, activists, and political campaigns depend on email campaigns for a variety of organizational functions.

Whether it’s a call to action among an organization’s evangelists or a hard-ask campaign to donors, email marketing is a time-tested strategy. Unfortunately, these organizations often lack the institutional knowledge necessary to deploy actionable software effectively. Too often, campaigns resort to the worst possible software solutions for their marketing stacks. That’s why we thought it would be essential to put the email platforms that we’ve identified and reviewed head-to-head.

Top email platforms by rating

These are the top platforms based on Telegraph’s rating calculations for reviews.

Oracle Eloqua – 90/100, “Over the moon”: Eloqua is one of the most robust enterprise marketing platforms available on the market. The tool features customer relationship continuity features, deep analytics, and proven effectiveness. However, what differentiates Eloqua from most enterprise marketing platforms is its proprietary customer journey mapping algorithms. Cost: Plans begin at $2,000 per month.

Amazon SES – 90/100, “Over the moon”:Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is an email marketing framework focused on digital marketing, transactional, and notification emails. SES can be implemented with external integrations and AWS-built SaaS platforms easily. It’s scalable and can get the job done. Cost: $0 for the first 62,000 emails you send in any given month, and $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent after that. External SaaS come at extra costs.

NationBuilder – 80/100, “Spiffy”:NationBuilder is an industry staple for political campaigns and activists. This platform offers significant full-suite integration; however, NationBuilder has a unique email marketing platform. NationBuilder is advertised as a platform for all civic engagement, and most of its features are tailored to political candidates – such as integration into the voter file and voter registration systems. Cost: Plans begin at $24 per month.

Campaign Monitor – 73/100, “Middling”:Campaign Monitor is the most user-friendly email marketing platform that Telegraph has reviewed. The platform’s beginner-friendly UI is one of the “cleanest” on the market while the automated marketing tools are intuitive. The email templates and the editor are also straightforward to use. Cost: Plans begin at $9 per month.

Constant Contact – 66/100, “Hodgepodge”:Constant Contact is one of the preeminent email marketing automation platforms. With a built-in Social CRM, an industry standard drop-and-drag HTML editor, SMS marketing feature, and a focus on funding remittance, Constant Contact features the basics for beginners. Cost: Plans start at $20 per month.

Mailchimp – 65/100, “Hodgepodge”:Mailchimp is the “gateway drug” for marketing automation. This platform serves as one of the most extensively used email marketing tools producing user-oriented solutions and a plethora of integrations. Mailchimp is a beginner friendly and cost-effective option for small and DIY campaigns. Cost: Free plan with premium plans beginning at $10 to $20 per month.

Our recommendations

Campaigns backed by professional marketers should use Oracle Eloqua.

Beginners should use Campaign Monitor. This platform is the only tool listed with a perfect 25/25 user interface score.

For bargain hunters, campaigns should deploy Mailchimp for the free and cheaply priced plans.

More from Telegraph & Lincoln Network

How To Strengthen Your Email Strategy – Campaigns need to be able to rely on email marketing to recruit activists and volunteers while also raising funds for outreach, engagement, and field-related operations.